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What is it?
Harley Benton’s Aged Series is a work two years in the making, and as such, the guitar brand calls it the “most ambitious series yet.”
I understand this claim. There’s a choice of five different models, with 20 overall products, fitted with aged hardware and hand-worn finishes.
They may look old, but these guitars are new for Harley Benton with Isola pickups. They also have American alder bodies and caramelised Canadian maple for the neck and (in this case) fingerboard.
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Importantly, if you’re not looking for a very aged look, each model comes in either a light aged (LA) or heavy aged (HA) finish – although the fingerboard and finish combinations are preset and vary across the models.
The Stratocaster, Telecaster and Jazzmaster-style guitars, specifically, are intensified by the backdrop of the legal dispute between brands like Thomann (the owner of Harley Benton) and Fender over who is allowed to use that iconic shape and styling.
However, what could appear as a timely, punky middle finger to the brand behind some of the most iconic guitars in the world has actually been in the works for a couple of years.
The ST-62LA sports a very classic Strat look and setup, with three single coil pickups, a single cutaway body, and a chunky headstock similar to the Strats of the 1950s, except a little less pronounced.
The model I’ve got my mitts on is the Black ST-62LA, which is a Light Aged variant, and its relicing is hand-applied. The intention being to mimic what decades of playing would actually do to a guitar.
It’s an almost wildly low price for a brand new, aged guitar, and one might wonder about the potential ripple effects of this launch on the guitar industry if it proves popular. I spent a few weeks with the guitar to find out if it lives up to the story and the look. Here’s how it went.
Specs
- Price: $238 | £214 | €249
- Type: Six-string solid-body single-cut electric guitar
- Body: American alder
- Neck: Caramelised Canadian maple, C-shape
- Fingerboard material: Caramelized Canadian maple
- Fingerboard radius: 305mm (12″)
- Scale length: 648mm (25,5″)
- Nut/width: graphite / 42mm
- Frets: 22 silver nickel medium jumbo frets
- Hardware: Kluson-style tuners, six-point tremolo system bridge, 3-ply white pickguard
- String spacing at bridge: 50 mm
- Electrics: Three Isola VT-ST Alnico 5 single coil pickups, one volume and two tone controls, 5-way switch
- Weight: 6.8lb / 3.1kg
- Options: Heavy Aged or Light Aged
- Left-handed options: N/A
- Finishes: Sunburst or Black (both polyurethane)
- Case: N/A
- Contact: Harley Benton
Build quality
Build quality rating: ★★★★☆
To be perfectly honest, I’m not fully in on the artificially aged trend. I prefer to earn the knocks, chips and bumps in battle or while clumsily shredding in my bedroom, so letting someone else do it for me, and then getting me to pay extra for the privilege has never quite sat right with me.
But the light ageing on my review model of the ST-62LA is, dare I say, tasteful. Paint has come off on the body where you’d traditionally place your arm or pop it on your leg, the fretboard lacquer is worn down where you’d land your fingers for a typical D major chord, and the pickups are tinted yellow.
The rest of the fretboard is near brand new, and so is the headstock, but the contrast of new and old certainly doesn’t look ugly to my eyes, even though it’s not super ‘authentic’.
I do think the white and almost orange ageing on the pickguard looks a little artificial, but everything else looks impressive, from the Kluson-style tuners and the aged output jack. The Black model I’ve got my hands on is a little bit of a beauty, and one I can’t help but pick up every time I walk by it.
Under my fingers, it’s smooth, with no friction, though I did find the fret ends to be not totally uniform. In particular, if I slide up on the bottom string between around the fifth and the seventh fret, I can feel the edge of the fret. It’s not quite sharp, but I wouldn’t say it’s smooth either.
I feel the same issues on the top end when I’m playing attempting Hendrix– or Mayer-style thumbed chords. If I choose to move that chord shape, thumb and all, I can feel just a little too much of the fret.
The finish is polyurethane, which can largely be expected for the price, and it does give the guitar a bit of a plasticky feeling, but that does make its finish more durable. So, depending on your priorities, this (plus the price difference) could be a worthwhile trade-off.
I found no dead notes (you’d expect as such but still), and though there is some buzz on the B string, that doesn’t come through when plugged in. It’s just a minor annoyance while unplugged.
At just 3 kg, this Harley Benton is light to hold, and well balanced too. Left on the strap, the neck doesn’t dive down, which is a huge boon for long playing sessions while stood up. It also doesn’t feel weak in the process. It’s the type of guitar I wouldn’t mind throwing in a bag and bringing with me to a gig, and what’s an extra knock on an aged guitar, anyway?
One thing that does stand out about the ST-62LA is that it has stellar specs for the price. You are getting an American alder body, which is traditionally saved for higher-priced guitars. Similarly, the Caramelised Canadian Maple fingerboard punches above its budget weight, and nicely aged hardware all add to this.
It tops that all off with a surprisingly killer aesthetic that is downright tasteful as far as faux-reliced guitars go.
Playability
Playability rating: ★★★★½
While its look often makes me want to pick it up, there’s plenty of reason to keep playing because the neck is surprisingly great. It’s ultra smooth and clean, and comfortable in the palm. The action is quite low too, which makes fast clean riffs easy to hit. With my finger on the 1st fret, I measured just north of 1.5 mm on the twelfth fret.
Interestingly, the relicing doesn’t go past the fifth fret or so, and I suspect thirty years of me playing a guitar would end up in substantially more wear past this point. I do feel that the noticeable fret ends do cut some of that playability, but it’s still a very nice guitar to just jam away on.
Playing this guitar makes you realise just how much better budget guitars have become, in regard to feel. Unplugged, jamming on my sofa, the ST-62LA doesn’t feel a million miles away from a much more expensive guitar, other than maybe the feel of the poly on my elbow.
Perhaps a testament to both neck feel and a sturdy body, but there are no issues thrashing chords and playing the strings my hardest. That feels like an absolutely necessary use case for guitar, the catharsis of just throwing it at some distortion and making a wall of sound, and it handles it well.
Intonation is perfect here too, so I feel comfortable getting high up on the guitar as I play. It holds tuning decently, though loses it quicker than my PRS SE CE 24 and Fender ’72 Telecaster Deluxe. I do find tuning tends to go off at around the same rate.
If you are worried about losing tuning, you may be put you off using the tremolo bar too much, and the stiffness of the bar will only contribute to that feeling. You really have to yank it to drastically change the pitch, and I’m still not comfortable applying that amount of pressure.
Out of the box, it is an impressively playable guitar but one that could benefit from some fine-tuning and perhaps a setup to sort out the fret edges, buzz and stiff tremolo bar.
Sounds
Sounds rating: ★★★★½
Coming with three single coil pickups, the ST-62LA has a very typical S-type setup. The Isola VT-ST-N Alnico 5 neck pickup is heavier on the bass, accompanied by a bit of warmth, which is fitting for full underlying rhythm playing, where the bridge pickup is bright, almost jangly and high in treble.
The middle pickup, an Isola VT-ST-M, is intended to bridge the gap between the two. There is a volume difference between the bridge and neck pickup (with the second being louder), but this is something that could be adjusted very easily.
On the whole, I’m rather impressed with the Isolas for the price. Plugged into my Fender Mustang LT25, it can handle sharp, syncopated mathy chords with a light overdrive, or clean delay riffs like a champ.
Bridge pickups, especially more budget-oriented ones, can add a bit of harshness in the high-end, especially for solos and other flashy riffs above the 12th fret, but Harley Benton has good ones in my test model, being bright without being too piercing.
I found myself much preferring the slightly twangy bridge pickup, especially when throwing sharp attack at the strings. The neck pickup does add some fullness but also sounds a tad more muffled. I wouldn’t call it bad, per se, but I do like it less. On singular notes, the neck pickup is as clear and bassy as you might want, but with jangly chords or sharp arpeggios, it can lose some clarity, and the low end can overpower.
These Alnico V pickups offer a higher output in exchange for a reduced dynamic range, which means they aren’t quite ‘vintage’ in approach. All three pickups take to punchy sounds well (as one might expect from Alnico V), but that neck pickup struggles somewhat with intricate guitar work as the bass tones tend to drown out the rest.
That can be tweaked with the neck tone knob, and I tend to prefer it cranked to around 7 or 9, to allow the high end of its register to sing through.
As such, the tone knob for the middle pickup is my favourite to use. I find there to be a solid range of sound worth using here, whereas the neck pickup seems more limited. The first four or so layers of the neck tone knob cut away at so much of the already pretty lacking high end that I found them often not worth using.
Interestingly, with only two tone knobs (for the neck and middle pickup), there’s no way to control the bridge pickup without going into the EQ of the amp or DAW you use, or throwing some sort of EQ pedal at it.
Swapping over to my DAW of choice (Logic Pro), I set the guitar on a whole pile of amp presets via the Neural Amp modeller, with it taking particularly well to a 1977 Fender Super Reverb. I also found ferocious tone in the Full Rig Peavey 5150 + Mesa 4×12, but it can get a bit messy, especially in the silence in between notes. That’s a common single coil hindrance, though.
No matter which pickup you use and in which position, the ST-62LA is bright. And to me that’s part of its charm
Where this Harley Benton shines particularly is in twangy country, blues, and rock and roll, thanks to an assortment of bright pickups.
I would, however, advise bringing down the tone knob just a smidge if you are throwing something very heavy and loud, as its brightness can punch through distortion in a way that can almost pierce.
But no matter which pickup you use and in which position, the ST-62LA is bright. And to me that’s part of its charm. Overall, it’s a solid set of sounds that mimics the more expensive Strat well, and though it won’t convince you it’s a much more expensive guitar, it certainly doesn’t sound as cheap as it is.
Verdict
The ST-62LA is surprisingly well built, but lacking the final touches I would otherwise want, like smooth fret ends and an easy-to-use tremolo bar. And I much prefer the sound of its neck pickup to its bridge one. Still, it feels great to play, has a tone that outpaces its very modest price, and it looks great.
Though I don’t think the relicing is perfectly consistent, I do think it looks pretty great, and I don’t know how much I care about ‘fooling’ someone into believing my Harley Benton is actually from the ’60s.
Still, despite some QC issues, when I’m throwing riffs at it on that bridge pickup, I’m getting a truly great experience for the money, and one that I would have expected to pay much more for. It’s clear that Harley Benton knows how to make a good guitar, and you feel it instantly.
Still, one might expect that if they’re paying little for guitars, they might require some setting up
Still, one might expect that if they’re paying little for guitars, they might require some setting up, and the ST-62LA’s blemishes don’t totally dull the shine of everything else. If you’re in need of a cheap relic’d guitar, I simply can’t think of another option out there for the price, other than the other aged guitars that Harley Benton has launched beside it.
My review model has some annoyances and blemishes, but the overall package sounds good, feels lovely to play, and most importantly, looks the part. I’m particularly fond of its bright, jangly neck pickup, and combined with the smooth neck, feel like I could jam away on it all day.
MusicRadar verdict: If you’re looking for a budget aged guitar, there is really nothing like the ST-62LA out there at this price. It’s helped by materials that would traditionally accompany much more expensive guitars (like the alder body) and fantastic neck. It offers a great fast-track, tweakable platform for an aged guitar at an accessible price point.
|
Test |
Results |
Score |
|---|---|---|
|
Build quality |
Looks great and has some nice touches, with a pretty impeccable spec. But a setup would sort out the final fit and finish. |
★★★★☆ |
|
Playability |
A smooth and lovely neck makes for a very natural feel, but the odd sharp fret holds it back. |
★★★★½ |
|
Sounds |
I find the bright jangly bridge pickup to outperform the somewhat muddy neck, and the middle is a good balance of the two, but even at its worst, this guitar sounds pretty sweet. |
★★★★½ |
|
Overall |
A no-brainer at this price if you just want a cheap relic’d S-type, and a solid choice even without that consideration. |
★★★★☆ |
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